


There's Someone Reaching Back for Me

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: True Love or Something [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Family, Fluff, Gen, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, M/M, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: To: Big Brother is Watching YouApparently ‘we’ll do a family Thanksgiving’…actually means visiting family
To: KeithYou’re an idiotThat’s obviously what it means
With Shiro out of town for work, Keith finds himself going home with Lance for Thanksgiving.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HI, HELLO, HOW ARE YOU, YOUR COMMENTS ARE THE BEST AND MAKE ME VERY HAPPY
> 
> So this fic ties directly into the 'November' section of 'Holy Moly, Me Oh My' and was written partially in response to some requests I got to write the Sanchez-McClain Thanksgiving. It will make significantly less sense without having read 'Holy Moly'. 
> 
> I ended up splitting this fic up into chapters because it was getting long and the first section really does stand alone. So, be ready for more to come.

In hindsight, the conversation at ‘Family Dinner’ (the optimistic term Hunk used to describe the one night a week the four inhabitants of the Duplex Known as the Garrison gather together to combine all their leftover food from the week into a buffet-style free-for-all…which they then ate sitting on Pidge and Hunk’s living room floor, like Adults) should have tipped Keith off about Thanksgiving.

            “So, weird Thanksgiving traditions, everyone. Go,” Lance says around a mouthful of Monday’s chicken chow mein.

            Pidge hums thoughtfully, “Well, Mom always tries to do the big dinner thing. But Dad always tries to help and ends up messing up about half of it. Typically we manage to salvage some turkey and a bunch of the hard-to-fuck-up sides. Then Matt and I try to re-create the Macy’s Parade with Legos.”

            “Nerds,” Lance laughs, “Okay, Hunk, you’re up. Thanksgiving.”

            Hunk rolls his eyes, “You know what we do for Thanksgiving. You went home to my house for Thanksgiving freshman year of college. Before his moms moved upstate, plane fare to Michigan was too expensive and my family’s only a few hours away by bus,” he explains for Keith’s benefit, “Lance crashed with me freshman year.”

            “For which I will be eternally and forever grateful, big guy,” Lance says magnanimously, “But we’re talking about traditions! Fond reminiscing in preparation for the holiday! It’s basically pre-gaming the warm fuzzy feelings.”

            “I don’t think you’re using ‘pre-gaming’ right,” Keith says flatly and yelps in protest when Lance steals one of his pizza bagels in retaliation.

            As they wrestle for the pizza bagel Hunk hums thoughtfully, “Well, mom and dad always makes a big dinner. We don’t do turkey; Dad makes a big pineapple ham and Mom makes a bunch of sides.”

            “Hunk’s family owns the best restaurant on the planet,” Lance pipes up helpfully, then, “Keith, quit it, I stole this pizza bagel fair and square.”

            Keith glares and flicks him in between the eyes before detaching and returning to his previous seat. And then pointedly sliding away from Lance, who whines in protest at the sudden distance between them. Keith smirks smugly and eats the rest of the pizza bagels.

            “Yeah,” Hunk continues, “It’s a neat little place. Dad runs the kitchen and Mom manages the dining room. They use a bunch of family recipes. For Thanksgiving they invite all their friends from the neighborhood and all the servers and we do a big private dinner at the restaurant.”

            “See? That was fun. Talking about traditions is fun,” Lance says brightly and Keith is filled with sudden dread as it dawns on him that he’s probably next in this little show-and-tell and…well…he’s got nothing to say. Yeah, he and Shiro have traditions, sort of. But they aren’t heartwarming family bonding moments. Binge-watching Pixar movies, making homemade pizza and seeing who can make the weirdest cranberry-themed mixed drink just seems so…college-y. Immature. Fake. The kind of stuff two dumb kids with no idea how to be a family would come up with because they feel like they need to do _something_ to mark the occasion.

            He’s saved from Lance’s bright, expectant eyes and questions by his ringtone.

            “Boo, no phones at family dinner!” Pidge chides, throwing a plastic fork at him.

            Keith rolls his eyes at her, “I need my phone for work.”

            “Well, is it work?”

            “No, it’s Shiro.”

            She narrows her eyes at him like she thinks he’s lying but nods eventually, “You may answer.”

            Keith snorts, “Yeah, thanks for permission to do what I was already gonna do.” He accepts the call and brings the phone up to his ear, walking away from the group, into the quiet of the hallway. “What’s up?”

            “Hey,” Shiro sounds a little breathless but not like he’s dying or anything so Keith is tentatively hopeful (what can he say, he’s a pessimist) “I’m sorry, did I interrupt anything?”

            “Just eating leftovers on the floor.”

            A sigh, “Keith, why aren’t you eating at the table?”

            “It’s this weird weekly bonding thing with my neighbors, don’t ask. Anyway, what’s going on?”

            “Uh, why do you think something’s going on?”

            “Dude, you called me.”

            “…Right.”

            “Should have thought of that, shouldn’t you?”

            “No, sorry, I’m not trying to keep secrets,” now he’s sounding frazzled, “Or anything. It’s just been a really weird day.”

            “Weird how?” Now Keith’s a little concerned. Unflappable Shiro having a ‘weird day’? The world must be on the brink of annihilation.

            “Weird…okay, you remember that book Mom wrote?”  

            “Yes,” Keith says dryly, “How could I forget?”

            “Well they re-released it last year, a fifteenth anniversary thing or something. And they asked me to write a forward. I think the Institute funded the project, honestly.”

            “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

            “Anyway, the little publisher that put the book out in the first place just got acquired by a major company and they apparently had some junior editor reading over the most recently published works from the printer in preparation for the merger or something? And, well, they read Mom’s book and my forward and thought it’d be a good project.”

            “Some publisher wants you to write a book on aliens?” Keith hopes Shiro hears in his voice how ridiculous this sounds.

            “No, no, some publisher wants me to write about Mom and growing up with her and everything. Apparently I’ve had a ‘fascinating life’ and my ‘fresh perspective on the modern family’ would be ‘dynamic and interesting’ as a memoir? They want me to meet with an editor. But she’s in California…”

            “When?” Keith can tell where this is going, and he’s ignoring the way his stomach twists.

            “The week of Thanksgiving.”         

            “ _Shiro_.”

            “I know.”

            “They want you to cannibalize our childhood for some book project _and_ they’re making you meet with them over Thanksgiving?”

            “Are you okay with this?”

            “With what, Shiro?”

            “The idea of me writing a book about mom, about us. It’s your story too, you know.”

            Keith rolls his eyes; “I don’t give a fuck if you write about us, Takashi. I really don’t. I want to read your manuscript before final printing and I reserve the right to veto anything horribly embarrassing but sure, write whatever. I’m just. Thanksgiving.” And he knows he’s too old to sound like this, like a disappointed little kid. But he can’t help it. Little kid or not, he’s disappointed.

            “We can do pizza and Pixar when I get back?” And Shiro’s trying so hard. Like always. Shiro always has to make everyone happy and Keith knows, he _knows_ his brother would ditch this meeting in a heartbeat if Keith even _hints_ he won’t be okay with doing Thanksgiving alone.

            And that’s unacceptable. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’m sure Lance has some crazy ideas for Thanksgiving. His family’s really into the Hallmark holidays, I think. I’ll be fine. Go to California, do the meeting, write your book. It’ll be awesome.”

            “Thanks, kiddo.” And Shiro’s smiling now. Keith was right; he just needed permission. He wants to go to California and talk about books and their wacky childhood. So no, Keith does not feel guilty about lying about his Thanksgiving plans. As far as he knows, he and Lance are just going to hang around the house all day and relax, which is totally fine with him.

            It’ll be nice to have nowhere to be for once.

            “No problem. Bye, Shiro.”

            “Bye, kid.”

            Keith hangs up. Nope, no guilt.

…

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_So I may have made a tactical error._

**To: Keith**

_What?_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Apparently ‘we’ll do a family Thanksgiving’_

_…actually means visiting family_

**To: Keith**

_You’re an idiot_

_That’s obviously what it means_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_*Lance’s* family_

**To: Keith**

_Duh?_

_We don’t have any family_

_We’re Dickensian orphan children_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_You make Oliver Twist jokes and I’m disowning you_

_But seriously, Shiro…_

_SHiro_

_ShIRO WHAT DO I DO????_

**To: Keith**

_Really delayed reaction there, kiddo_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Shut up and HELP ME_

_SHIRO_

_I CAN’T REMEMBER HIS SISTERS’ NAMES_

_WHICH ONE IS WHICH?_

_I HAVE A COLOR-CODED CHART TO KEEP TRACK_

_OF JUST THE COUSINS_

_I CAN’T DO THIS_

**To: Keith**

_A color-coded chart?_

_You’re so pathetic._

_Poor trash baby._

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Get off the internet, Shiro_

**To: Keith**

_Just breathe_

_You’ll be fine_

_I have faith in you_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_PRACTICAL ADVICE, SHIRO_

_NOW WOULD BE GOOD_

**To: Keith**

_Take a deep breath_

_Lance isn’t going to let you embarrass yourself_

_Well, not too badly_

_He loves you_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_G2G, he’s back._

_Don’t tell him I freaked out_

**To: Keith**

_Okay, emotional honesty, Keith_

_It’s not that hard._

_Keith._

_Keith._

_Keeeeeeith_

_You’re going to have to respond eventually_

_Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeith_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_I’m fine; everything is fine_

**To: Keith**

_Why do I feel like you’re lying?_

_Oh, because you are._

_You’ll be okay; you’ll be great_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Thanks, bro._

...

            Okay, so maybe Keith is an idiot for not realizing what ‘we’ll do a family Thanksgiving’ means. But he’d like to point out that his version of ‘family’ and Lance’s version are wildly different things. Lance’s family is big and bright and chaotic and Keith’s only met maybe a third of them. He’s met Lance’s moms and a sister or two he thinks but never all of them all at once.

            Keith’s pretty sure he’d never going to be prepared for this experience.

            “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Lance is shooting him worried glances as they pack up the car (thank god Keith always has an overnight bag packed just in case of sudden travel – thank you, fifteen years of Mom’s wandering ways).

            “Are you sure you’re not going to get us killed getting there?” When uncomfortable – attack. That particular defective coping mechanism is probably why Keith got in so many fights in high school.

            “Hey, rude and uncalled-for,” Lance says, dramatically placing a hand over his heart, “I know this route like the back of my hand!”

            “Okay, prove it,” Keith challenges because he’s in a weird mood and stressed and feeling kind of bizarrely confrontational, “Describe the back of your hand to me.” What the fuck? What is he even saying? That is not a thing people say to other people.

            But Lance, bless his deranged little heart, just grins and sticks out a hand, “You’re on.”

            And that’s how Keith and Lance spend fifteen minutes engaged in the most aggressive handholding of all time, arguing over whether the freckles on Lance’s knuckles are visible or not in the winter.

            They finally agree to disagree – by which point they’ve reeled each other way far into their personal space bubbles, still connected by their intertwined fingers, and are basically nose to nose.

            Lance, of course, ruins the moment, “Holy sexual tension, Batman. I think that was our dumbest argument yet.”

            “I think the one over whether it’s ‘Cup Noodles’ or ‘Cup of Noodles’ was the dumbest.”

            “Nah, that could be disproven by looking at a package of…” Lance pauses on the name, still not quite willing to admit defeat, “… _noodles_. Empirical evidence. This one’s about freckle visibility. Really no way to make that scientific, babe.”

            “Not scientists,” Keith says because he’s not even sure where his head’s at right now but the fact that his very attractive boyfriend is all up in his space is not making clear thinking any easier.

            “Nope,” Lance smiles easily and Keith envies that ability to just shed negative emotions and put on new ones in a heartbeat. Lance leans forward and presses a kiss to Keith’s nose because he’s sappy like that. “You sure you’re okay, babe? I did kind of spring this on you, which is a _dick_ move and we’re definitely discussing communication and healthy relationship shit at some point,” he squeezes Keith’s captive hand for emphasis, “And I know you said it was cool, but…” his eyes are bright and he’s so close and Keith’s heart is feeling soft and squishy like half-melted ice cream.

            Shiro was right. Lance loves him. He’s not going to let him embarrass himself too terribly.

            “I have no idea what I’m doing,” Keith confesses and it sounds so ordinary out loud.

            “What do you mean?” Lance tips his head forward until they’re pressed forehead to forehead and Keith is very, very glad Pidge has already left or she’d be leaning out of a upper story window and heckling them.

            Keith sucks in a breath, “I’ve never had a family holiday. I don’t know…how.”

            “It’s not like riding a bike, you don’t need to learn how to do it.”

            “Easy for you to say. You just know stuff like this. People.” Keith gestures helplessly with his free hand.

            Lance snorts, “You know I was a total loser in high school, right? I’m not some people-person genius, y’know? And you’re not this socially defective robot you think you are.”

            “I never said I was a robot,” Keith mutters.

            “Yeah, but you wish you were sometimes,” Lance says, eyes soft, “Because you don’t like feeling all the feelings.”

            Keith rolls his eyes, “Feeling the feelings is for _actors_.”

            “And _humans_.”

            “Quit being insightful,” Keith bumps back Lance’s forehead, making room for him to tuck his head under Lance’s chin, “It’s creepy. Go back to being a spastic dork.”

            “Sure, in a minute,” Lance pets his hair with his free hand, “I know you can’t always keep my sisters’ names straight. And yeah, Pidge showed me the cousin chart. Which. Good try? But that’s super weird, babe. In a really lovable way.”

            “Not my fault you have so many damn relatives. My family’s easy. Shiro. One person. And you, but if you don’t know who you are then we’ve got bigger problems.”

            Lance laughs; a sudden, bright, delighted sound bubbling up from the middle of his chest like freshly opened champagne. He throws his free arm around Keith’s waist and pulls him into a hug, detaching his other hand from Keith’s and letting it join the hugging party.   “I love you, babe. I really, really, _really_ love you.”

            “Um. I know? You tell me every day?”

            Lance pinches his side, “Quit Han Soloing. It’s not as funny after several repetitions.”

            “I’m genuinely confused.”

            Lance pulls back, taking Keith’s face in both his hands and kissing him soundly, “Family. You said I was part of your family.”

            “Um. Obviously?”

            Lance actually _giggles._ Giddy. “You’re so cute.”

            “Am not.”      

            “Whatever you say, babe.”

            Keith frowns at him, “So you’re just _fine_ with the fact that I’m probably going to do something horribly wrong and offended at least one person and call a bunch of people by the wrong name tonight?”

            “Is that some kind of checklist? Is there a sticky note with all that listed on it? Because I’m not gonna start worrying until you start planning your social awkwardness in advance,” Lance smiles at him, “It’s okay. Here’s the nice thing about housefuls of people – no one notices you after a while. So you can’t mess anything up too terribly because none of the attention will be on you.”

            Keith huffs, “See? That’s practical advice. If you’d just said that straight off we wouldn’t have had this sappy emotional conversation out here in the cold.”

            Lance hums, “Yeah, but I like our sappy, emotional conversations. And talking about feelings in the snow is kind of our thing.”

            Keith rolls his eyes, “Let’s just get in the car and get this over with.”

            “That’s the spirit!”

            Keith wonders how Shiro’s doing in California. Probably not better than Keith’s doing right now.

           

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOUR COMMENTS ARE STILL THE BEST, THANK YOU SO MUCH
> 
> So this is apparently going to be three chapters instead of two...this is turning out way longer than I expected, honestly.

“Valentina, Jamie, Carla –”

            “She goes by Carly,” Lance interrupts Keith’s recitation of the McClain-Sanchez sisters’ names. At Keith’s look he shrugs, “Just trying to help.”

            Keith sighs. They’re in the car on the way to the house and Keith has less than an hour to get this right. He hasn’t felt this stressed since college. “Valentina, Jamie, _Carly_ , Andrea, Sofia.”

            “Good job, you get a cookie.”

            “Being patronizing is not helpful,” Keith says flatly, “especially if there aren’t any actual cookies.”

            “You do know you’re being crazy and they are not going to expect you to remember all their names right away? Babe, you haven’t even _met_ Jamie or Carly yet. You met Val _once_ at a dumb function her work was hosting in the city.”

            “Shit.”

            “What now?”

            “I forgot her husband’s name.”

            “Bruce, and they have two kids.”

            “Daniela and Carmen. Twins?”

            “Perfect score. Imaginary cookie for Keith.”

            Keith sticks his tongue out at his boyfriend because he’s mature. “Valentina and Jamie are older than you.”

            “Yep.”

            “Valentina works for a big non-profit in the city doing…something?”

            “Charity work?”

            “That’s basically 75% of what non-profits do. She’s your sister, how do you not know what she does?”

            “I just know she works for a non-profit and they do a lot of black-tie fundraisers! That’s all I’ve ever had to know! And that she wears skirt suits and had a Blackberry before it was cool.”

            Keith narrows his eyes at him, “I know what Shiro does.”

            “You have one brother! Much easier to keep track of!”

            Keith rolls his eyes at him, “Whatever. Valentina’s twenty-nine, Jamie’s twenty-eight.”

            “I would remark on how creepy it is that you appear to have studied for this like some kind of pop quiz, but it’s also kind of endearing so I’ll let it slide.”

            “You don’t study for pop quizzes, Lance, they’re unpredictable.”         

            “My point stands.”

            Keith stares at him in disbelief before shaking his head and continuing. “Jamie lives in Oregon and works on a organic farm co-op thing?”

            “She lives in the woods and grows Kale with other, similar nature enthusiasts. That’s all I know.”

            “She’s vegan.”           

            “Well, someone has to eat the kale.”

            “Is she vegan?”

            “Yeah, she’s vegan.”

            Keith exhales and refocuses, “Carly is in college in California and twenty-two.”

            “Yeah,” Lance beams, “She’s a senior this year; we’re all super proud of her. She’s double majoring in early childhood education and psychology. She wants to be a social worker or a teacher. Maybe a school psychologist.”

            “And she’s your favorite.”

            “Hey!” Lance protests dramatically, taking a hand off the steering wheel to clutch at his heart dramatically, “I choose no favorite amongst my siblings, they are all precious gifts and treasures –”

            “KEEP BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL,” Keith shouts when they wobble a bit and Lance returns his hands to ten and two.

            “You’re so dramatic.”

            “I WANT TO LIVE.”

            Lance laughs at him and Keith glares. “Yeah, you’re right, though. When we were growing up we kind of divided ourselves up into pairs. Jamie and Val, me and Lala. Now it’s Andie and Sofie.”

            “Lala?”

            “Oh, yeah, don’t tell her you know about that. It was what I called her when we were kids. I’m the only person allowed to use it basically because I’m the only one who won’t stop.”

            Keith stares at him, “Being annoying is like your superpower.”

            “Hey, I managed to annoy you into dating me,” Lance grins. He’s drumming a little rhythm on the steering wheel and he’s so impossibly _happy_ that they’re doing this.

            “No, you ran into me, took me to the hospital and gave me stolen lollipops and stickers,” Keith corrects him because he can’t help it.

            “A stellar first date.”

            “By absolutely no standards ever is that a good date.”

            “ _But_ you love me anyway.”

            “Because I’m an idiot.”

            “Buuuuut, you luuuuuv me.”

            “Obviously.”

            Lance beams and Keith’s insides melt a little bit before he can manage to refocus. Again. Lance is distracting. He needs to be less beautiful or something. “And Andrea is a senior in high school and Sofia is a sophmore.”

            “Junior.”

            “Who?”

            “Sofie.”

            “Okay,” Keith nods, adding it to the spreadsheet in his head, “You mom is Meg McClain and your Mama is Esperanza Sanchez.”

            “And Keith chooses the ‘Lance’s Family’ category for five hundred,” Lance quips.

            Keith raises an eyebrow, “Jeopardy humor? Really?”

            “Have you ever binge-watched trivia gameshows with Hunk and Pidge? It’s the funniest thing ever.”

            “Your mom’s a freelance illustrator and your mama is a lawyer.”

            “Aww, you’re so good at this. Now, bonus round, what is _my_ name and what do _I_ do?” Lance flutters his lashes at Keith and Keith is forced to grab his chin and physically turn his head back towards the road.   
            “Eyes on the road, Lance. And you’re Youth Programming Coordinator at the Community Center because you’re a twenty-five-year-old child. You can’t drive to save your life, you _can_ cook weirdly well and your last hospital visit was because you decided to try sliding down the upstairs hallway in fuzzy socks and fell down the stairs.”

            “I take issue with the ‘weirdly well’ part of that statement.”

            “I take issue with coming home to you sitting on the landing covered in blood.”

            “So we’re even.”

            “Not even close.”

…

            Lance is worried about his boyfriend. Yes, Keith had seemed pretty cool with the whole thing this morning, but then there was that little freakout in the driveway and the obsessive recitation of Lance’s family member’s jobs, ages, and names on the drive down (and a long-distance drive of any kind that doesn’t feature Keith making fun of Lance’s music or demanding they stop at the first gas station to load up on weird junk food is just plain wrong). So no, Keith is not exactly behaving within normal parameters. And no, Keith’s not the socially defective robot-person he seems convinced he is. He’s actually pretty good with people when he isn’t worrying about it. It’s when he gets himself all tied in knots or when he finds himself in sudden, unplanned social situations that he freezes up or lashes out. (And yes, Lance is aware that a psychologist could have a field day picking apart all of Keith’s issues and Lance himself has a few choice questions for Keith’s mother – most along the line of ‘what the hell were you thinking?’ but Keith really isn’t nearly as mal-adjusted as he seems to think he is.)

            So when they park outside Lance’s parents’ house he grabs Keith’s collar and reels him in before Keith can do that hyper-efficient thing where he jumps out of the car immediately and unloads all the luggage then stands on the curb looking confused because he doesn’t actually know where they’re going. “You okay?” Lance asks.

            Keith huffs, “I’m fine.”  

            “Are you sure?”

            “I’m _fine_ ,” and there’s Keith’s fighting face, brows drawn in, corners of his mouth tight. It’s the face he gets when someone challenges him. The face that says ‘bring it on’ or ‘fight me’ or sometimes both.

            Lace kisses the furrow between his brows, which manages to surprise Keith into letting his face relax. “Good. We’re good.”

            Keith raises an eyebrow, “Glad to know you think so.”

            “I _know_ so,” Lance says with a cocky grin. He pecks Keith lightly on the lips – “For luck” and then slides out of the car and scampers over to the passenger side to open the door with an overdone courtly bow (thank you, ren faire).

            “Don’t make me push you in a snowdrift,” Keith growls because he’s cute like that.

            Lance laughs at him because cranky Keith is one of his favorite Keiths. Hell, every Keith is his favorite Keith. Keith’s his favorite. They grab their bags, pausing to get into a little slap-fight over whether or not Keith should carry both – Keith doesn’t win that one. (“If you keep that bag I will jump on your back to get it back, Keith Kogane, do not underestimate my willingness to embarrass myself in order to get what I want” - Keith relinquishes the bag).

            And then they’re walking up the pathway to the front door, which is thrown open before Lance can even think of knocking – yeah; someone was totally watching them from the front window. Lance is going to have to have words with his sisters about that.

            And then there’s his mom shouting “Lance! Honey! Come in, come in, it’s freezing out there” while his sisters yell greetings in the background and Lance is dragging a suddenly frozen Keith inside by the hand.

            Here goes nothing.

…

            Meg McClain barely comes up to Lance’s shoulder. She’s all soft curves and long, curly, light-brown hair gently fading to gray all bundled up in a messy bun on the back of her head. Her blue eyes twinkle brightly in her round face and she’s pulling Lance into a hug the minute they’re anywhere close to being ‘in the door’.

            “Hello, hello, sweetheart. How are you? Was the drive okay? You didn’t run into any bad weather, did you?”

            “Mom, I live an hour away. If there was any bad weather to run into, I think you’d hear about it.”

            Mrs. McClain swats him on the arm, “I’m making conversation. It’s what we do when our children come to visit us. We ask them a million questions about travel and the weather.”

            “Yeah, it’s dumb,” a teenage girl slouching behind their mom says, “And you’re late.”

            “I am on time. I’m here and there’s a time. Therefore, I am on time,” Lance says, “and you are incredibly rude not giving me a hello hug. I am heartbroken. Devastated. Emotionally compromised in every way. Worst sister ever.”

            The girl rolls her eyes, she has thick purple eyeliner and auburn hair streaked with green arranged on her head in a style so elaborately casual it must have taken an hour to accomplish, “You’re so weird, Lance.”

            “I’m still waiting on my hug, Sofia.”

            She makes a dramatic teenage whale noise and detaches from the wall to plod over and give her brother a hug. She hooks her chin over his shoulder to eye Keith suspiciously. “Who’s the hottie?”

            Keith is pretty sure his face is red. Like, there’s a solid 50% chance you could fry an egg on his forehead.

            Lance sputters and shoves her away with a palm on her forehead, eyeballing her dramatically, “ _That_ is my boyfriend and you’d better be nice to him.”

            The girl snorts and yells over her shoulder, “Andie, Lance brought his _boyfriend_.”

            “No way!” comes from somewhere in the depths of the house, “He totally doesn’t exist!”    

            “No, he totally does, he’s right here and he’s _hot_.”

            Keith wonders if you can die of a stroke at twenty-five.

            “ _What_? No way!” A thump, a clatter and running feet.

            “Girls, don’t make him uncomfortable,” Mrs. McClain tries to chastise them but she sounds like she’s halfway to laughing so the words lose their impact, “He’s our guest.”

            “Hey, he came here willingly, he totally knew the risks,” a girl that must be Andie drawls as she saunters over, eyes narrowed. “Hmm…so you’re real,” she says, “ _Interesting_. Very interesting…”

            Keith, who has never had to defend his own reality before, is nonplussed. “Well, according to Descartes we can’t prove anything’s real so there’s a chance I’m not.” Because this is the shit that Keith says when he doesn’t have Shiro to tell him when to please shut up now, thank you.

            “Smart and hot,” Andie says, assessing, then turns her attention to Lance, “You totally got him off CraigsList, didn’t you?”

            “What? I did not!”

            Sofia is cackling and Mrs. McClain has the look of someone who is expertly biting back on a laugh lest the children spot it and take it as incentive to keep going with their wildly inappropriate behavior.

            Andie, who has her dark brown hair cut in an A-line bob with one side sheared close to her head, narrows her hazel eyes at them. “We shall see.”

            Keith raises an eyebrow at her and narrows his eyes right back because he’s out of snappy comebacks.

            “Is that Lance?” comes another voice and Keith isn’t sure he’s ready to be stared at by yet another person.

            “Yes, he’s here and he brought Keith!” Mrs. McClain yells. Keith wonders about the viability of melting into the floor as a defense mechanism.

            Yet another sister pushes her way into the crowded entryway. She looks like Mrs. McClain, has the same stocky build but none of the softness. Her hands are calloused, her hair short, her skin a sun-kissed brown. Her curls are cut Rosie-the-Riveter short and Keith can imagine her holding them back with a bandana. “Hey, kid,” she says, grinning at her brother, “You look skinnier every time I see you. Has Mom threatened to feed you to death yet?”

            “Hey, I am perfectly healthy and healthily perfect, thank you!” Lance protests, but grabs the woman in a swift hug, “Hey, Jamie. It’s good to see you.”

            “You too, beanpole,” she says, ruffling his hair.

            “You are looking very skinny, hon,” Mrs. McClain says and her daughters laugh like this is an old family joke.

            “Told you,” Jamie says out of the corner of her mouth with a wink.

            It’s like being in sitcom. Keith’s head is spinning.

            “ _Madre de dios,_ get outta the way you loiterers, I want to see my son!” a strident new voice joins the fray and Lance’s Mama elbows her way to the front of the crowd that’s slowly forming in the entry. She beams when she sees Lance – he looks just like her, they’re both tall and lean, all angles; their every expression bright and sharp like reflected light. They have the same cinnamon-sugar skin and hair and the same lively hazel eyes. “ _Mijo_ , get over here,” she says and they’re hugging the stuffing out of each other. It makes something sharp and unexpected twist in Keith’s stomach seeing them together. He used to look like his mom too. He knows he did, people used to comment on it in supermarkets when he was little _“oh, that’s so cute, he looks just like his mommy”_. He misses that sometimes, being able to look at another person and know you belong.

            “Hey, you,” Mrs. Sanchez has disentangled herself from Lance and turned her attention on Keith, “I see you haven’t run away screaming yet.”

            Keith shrugs awkwardly, “I figure when Hunk and Pidge build a killer robot in the basement and it attacks us all we can run away screaming together.”

            Lance snorts, “Yeah right, you’d try to fight the robot because you’re a dumbass.”  

            “Fine, then you can run away and live.”

            “No way I’m letting you get all the robot-fighting glory.”

            “I’m sure Pidge and Hunk will give us lovely funerals.”

            “They’d better.”

            Mrs. Sanchez laughs, her eyes flashing like lightning, “Good to see you again, kid.” And yes, Keith has met her before, the three of them met up for lunch the last time she was in town and he was pretty sure it went well – or Lance said it had at least – but he didn’t think he’d made a good enough impression to warrant a _hug_. But here he is, getting a short, firm hug from a woman who has met him maybe twice.

            This is so weird. What is he supposed to do? No one hugs him. Ever. The hug list is limited to Lance and Shiro, occasionally guest starring Pidge or Hunk or even Allura when Lance does something dumb like falling down the stairs and ends up in the hospital.   Keith settles for awkwardly patting her back.

            She pulls back, “You’re not a hugger.”

            “…No…”

            She shrugs, “You’ll learn.”

            Keith does not like the sound of that.

            “Now everyone get back inside, we’re freezing our assess off out here for no good reason!”

            Mrs. McClain swats at her wife gently, “Language, love.”

            “I love having grown-up kids, it means I can swear in public again,” Mrs. Sanchez kisses her wife on the very tolerant cheek and returns to herding the masses inside.

            In her wake, Mrs. McClain turns to them and says, “Keith, honey, please remember to call us Meg and Esperanza. I know you’re calling us Mrs. McClain and Mrs. Sanchez in your head.”

            How did she _know_? Keith suspects witchcraft. He wonders if parenthood automatically imbues you with magical powers – it would explain so much about how Shiro always knows when Keith’s upset even when they’re miles away from each other…and how Shiro can get a perfect wing in his eyeliner without even trying.

            “I just know, honey,” she answers the question his face must have been asking before winking and following the rest of her family.

            Keith turns to Lance “How did she _know_?” he asks weakly.

            Lance shrugs. “Witchcraft?”

            Keith knew it.

…

            This isn’t Lance’s childhood home, Lance has explained all about the trials of growing up in ‘that frozen wasteland’ Michigan, which frankly doesn’t sound all that bad to desert-dwelling Keith. At least with extremely cold weather you can put on more layers. When it’s extremely hot outside there’s only so many layers you can remove before you’re just wearing skin, sweat and misery. So Lance doesn’t automatically have a room, instead they’re on the pullout couch in the living room.

            “Don’t do anything weird on it,” Sofia orders, giving them the stinkeye.

            “And by weird we mean sex,” Andrea follows up her commandment.

            “Yeah, don’t do the sex on it,” Sofia concurs.

            “What about just ‘sex’ no ‘the’?” Lance asks facetiously and Keith hits him with a pillow because that seems like an appropriate response. Lance sticks his tongue out at him because apparently they’re both on the path to regressing to middle-schoolers.

            “Don’t be gross,” Keith says dryly and the girls nod their agreement.

            “Whatever, spoilsports,” Lance sighs dramatically, “Hey, babe, I know it will be a trial resisting this hot bod – ”

            Keith hits him with the other pillow.

            “Hey, rude. I’m being attacked! Sisters, defend me!”

            “Nope.”

            “Nah.”

            Keith smirks smugly and Lance gives an elaborate sigh before straightening up and changes the subject. “So, where’s Val and the hub?”

            “Stop trying to make ‘the hub’ happen,” Andrea sighs.

            “Stop quoting _Mean Girls_ every time I come up with a brilliant new piece of slang and I might consider it,” Lance says.

            “Val and Bruce are on their way. They got a later start. Children,” Sofia makes a disgusted face and Keith feels that’s fair. Small children creeped him out when he was her age.

            “So what about Lala?” Lance asks. He’s sitting on the couch, arms folded over the back of it as he chats with his sisters. Keith sits on the arm, watching the exchange.

            “She’s hiding in her room,” Andrea explains, “Working on something. You’ll see her later when she comes out.”

            “If she comes out,” Sofia mutters.

            “Shut up, she’s busy,” Andrea says and Sofia rolls her eyes.

            “She’s looking at grad schools again.”

            “She’ll show up when she shows up.”

            Lance just kinds of nods along, “Yeah, whatever, I’m gonna go bug her. Be nice to Keith!” And then he’s _gone_ and Keith is going to _die_.

…

            Lance stops outside Carla’s door and actually knocks because sometimes he’s a civilized person who respects boundaries. “Hey, Lala. I’m back.”

            When their parents moved, Lala was still living at home so she got her own room in the new house. Before, when Lance had come home to visit he’d slept in the other twin bed. But now Jamie had that bed and he and Keith got to share the bigger couch bed while Val and Bruce took the guest bedroom and their kids slept on an air mattress on their floor. (Lance thinks this is wildly unfair; so marriage and children get you better sleeping real estate? No fair. Way to incentivize marriage and reproduction, moms. He supposes he should just be glad his moms are letting him share a bed with his boyfriend before marriage.)

            “Heeeeey, Lala. You should open the door. Because I’m just going to keep knocking. Laaaaaaalaaaaaa. Open the door. Pay attention to me. I’m gonna start singing if you don’t open the door. Okay, you asked for it, ahem, YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE, MY ONLY SUNSHI – ”

            The door is suddenly wrenched open and there’s his sister, glaring at him, “Were you dropped on your head as an infant?” she growls and there’s his childhood best friend.

            He grins, “Hey, sis. Guess who’s back? Me!” he opens his arms for a hug and she gives a defeated sigh before walking into the hug.

            “How you managed to snag a boyfriend is beyond me,” she mutters into his shoulder, giving him a squeeze as she does.

            “He finds my quirky, charming sense of humor alluring.”

            She snorts, “Sure.”

            “Oh yes, I’m a very sexy and desirable person.”

            “Ew, way to make it weird.”

            “It was already weird,” he laughs, and pulls away, “How are you, sis?”

            She shrugs, “I’m fine. I mean, senior year is frying my brain and grad school looks impossible but hey, there’s always the Peace Corps or faking my death if student loan debt looks too crushing.”

            “That’s the spirit.”

…

            They come back downstairs to find Keith playing poker with Lance’s teenaged sisters because he should never leave Keith unsupervised for too long.

            “I didn’t know what else to do with them,” Keith says with a shrug, “I’m not a very entertaining person.”

            This is actually not true, but hopefully cleaning Keith out at medium-stakes gambling will loosen his sisters up and make them more welcoming. Although, Keith’s actually pretty good at poker, he has the face for it.

            Lance sits down next to him and worms his way onto Keith’s lap. “How’s our hand looking?”

            Keith raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “What are you doing?”

            “I’m helping. How’s our hand looking?”

            Keith sighs, his breath tickling across the back of Lance’s neck and he does not shiver because he’s not doing that in front of his sisters.

            Lala sits down between Andrea and Sofia, “Okay, deal me in, losers.”

            “Do I know you?” Keith asks, “Am I supposed to know you?”

            “You will remember my name forever as the woman who destroyed you utterly at poker.”

            And Keith as Competitive Face on now and Lance settles in to enjoy the show. Keith’s fitting in just fine around here.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS, EVERYONE!!!
> 
> This is technically the final part of the Thanksgiving arc, although I do have a fourth mini-chapter of scenes that didn't make it into the main fic. I guess it's kind of an epilogue of sorts? 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this fic - I know I wasn't expecting to write a multi-chapter for this series...pretty much ever. This fic was a surprise, but lots of fun. I hope it was as fun to follow as it was to write.

Lance’s family is _loud_ and there are so _many_ of them. Valentina and Bruce show up with their kids around lunchtime and everything gets even louder, if possible. Keith has very little experience with children beyond actors behaving like them backstage (he has confiscated more bouncy balls, beanie babies, and cellphones than any adult should have to from other adults). He has no idea if Lance’s five-year-old nieces are any louder or more rambunctious than the average kindergarteners (the Community Center kids always seem to be all over the place, but typically when they’re with Lance they’re in the middle of some kind of fun, high-energy activity, so there is that). But the girls seem to be everywhere at once and constantly, constantly asking _questions._

            “Why’s there only hair on half of your head, Auntie Andie?”

            “Why do you always wear blue, Uncle Lance?”

            “Hey, Aunt Sofie, why’s your hair green now? Can I have green hair?”

            “Green hair? Can I have green hair too?”

            “Green hair! Green hair!”

            And on and on. They seem particularly preoccupied with hair, although that could be because Andrea and Sofia both have visibly unusual hairstyles. One of the two (they’re identical, oh god, Keith has no idea which is which only that one has short hair and one has long), climbs up on the couch beside Keith and squints at him inquisitively like she’s about to include him in the barrage of questions. Lance, seeing Keith’s wide-eyed look of panic, jumps in and distracts the tiny person, giving Keith some breathing room.

            In the kitchen Valentina and Mrs. Sanc- Esperanza, she said to call her Esperanza – are talking about something, their voices high and strident, sliding up and down the scale like musical notes, dipping in and out of Spanish and English, forming a braided rope of unrecognizable sound. It’s lively and energetic and eventually interrupted by Mrs. Mc – no, _Meg_ , interjecting and shooing them into the den where a football game plays on a giant tv. Their voices fade out only to be replaced by Bruce and Jamie’s vigorous discussion of – something to do with farming equipment. Apparently Bruce grew up on a farm or something? Keith can’t keep track of their conversation just superficially listening and he feels weird about actually concentrating on it, like he’s spying on them or something. So he lets his attention wander back to the living room.

            Lance is holding court, effortlessly entertaining both children at once with stories and jokes and general goofiness. It’s like watching him at work the handful of times Keith has come by the Community Center to pick him up or when he’s helped set up or host events. Lance is really very good with children. Keith jokes that it’s because Lance is a giant child himself but it’s really just a natural talent and deeply developed sense of empathy. He just gets kids.

            Keith envies him a little bit.

            Carla has escaped back upstairs to continue researching graduate programs but the teenagers are bunched together on the other end of the couch, Andrea looking over Sofia’s shoulder, at her phone. Sofia suddenly lets out a delighted squeal, Andrea clapping excitedly along with her. “He asked me! I’m in! He asked me! Mom, Mom!”

            “What?” Meg yells from the kitchen.

            “Tyler asked me to come by his house, his family’s doing a big Thanksgiving party and he’s invited all our friends and I want to go, can I? It’ll be after dinner, I’ll help with clean-up, just let me go to this thing, it’s suuuuuper important.”

            “Tyler?” Meg squints at her daughters, “That’s that boy you want to ask you to winter prom.”

            “Yeah, junior prom. This is all part of the plan. See, I’ve gotten him to come with me on some group outings.”

            “Step one,” explains Andrea.

            “And then I suggested he eat lunch with my friends and I a couple times a week and he accepted.”

            “Step two.”

            “And I got a reciprocal lunch invite.”

            “And now the groups are integrated, very important. Marry the friend groups and dating is more likely to be successful. If the friend groups are at odds it puts strain on the relationship,” Andrea editorializes sagely.

            “And then I went to one of his speech and debate events and was appropriately supportive and encouraging but not clingy.”

            “Step three.”

            “I’m working my way up to a real _date,_ but getting invited to this is step four of my master plan so I really need to go or I’m going to have to course-correct _weeks_ of planning, Mom!”

            Meg raises an eyebrow, “Dating sure has gotten a lot more complicated than it used to be.”

            Sofia rolls her eyes dramatically. “Of course it has, Mom, you’re old. So, can I go?”

            Meg huffs out a laugh, “I’m not sure I want to grant your request now. You just called me old.”

            Sofia makes an irritated keening sound, “ _Mom_.”

            “Come on, Mom,” Andrea tries to sound reasonable and ends up sounding like a smarmy used-car salesperson, “You know you’re going to say yes, why leave her hanging?”

            “For fun? You did call me old, you know,” Meg’s eyes twinkle with humor, “And I don’t like you just assuming I’ll say yes. What if I put my foot down and said no, I want family time? This is one of the few times a year we get everyone in the same house, I want to enjoy it.”

            “There are _tons_ of people here!” Sofia protests, “You won’t miss one more,” she searches the room and her gaze lands on Keith before he can escape, “You’ve got Keith this year, he can take my place!”

            “What?” Keith protests, he’s honestly not sure what’s going on here but he is sure he doesn’t want to be dragged into it, “Don’t pull me into this!”

            Meg fixes her youngest with a look, “Keith is not a substitute for you.”

            “Thank god,” says Lance, “Or that would make life really weird for me.”

            “Ugh, stay out of it, jerkface,” Sofia complains.

            “Fine, I was going to help you but nope, not now.”

            ‘Nooo, Lance, Lancelot, best brother ever?”

            He chuckles, “Mom, let Sofia go to her party. She’s just going to sulk if you say no. And we have all weekend for family bonding stuff.”

            Meg laughs, “I see I’m outvoted. Yes, you may go to your party, Sofia. But I expect you home by eleven at the absolute latest; understand? And no funny business.”

            “She means sex,” Andrea says, helpfully.

            Meg sighs, “Just be safe, okay?”

            Sofia scrunches up her face, “Ew, let’s stop talking about this, like, yesterday. Yes, I’ll be safe; don’t worry.”

            “And?” Meg raises an eyebrow expectantly.

            “And…thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me go to this very important party!”

            Meg sighs and shakes her head fondly, “Of course, honey. Now, Andie, you don’t have plans with friends, do you?”

            “Nah, I’m on the outer rim of Sofie’s group. I’m one of them, but not a core member. I’m pretty solidly out of Tyler’s group’s orbit. I’m free for the night.”

            “So kind of you to grace us with your presence,” Meg says dryly but she’s smiling.

            “You’re welcome,” Andrea says cheekily and she and Sofia go back to Sofia’s phone, whispering to each other about the text messages, trying to find some hidden meaning in whether or not he uses contractions.

            Keith’s not sure what he just witnessed.

…

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_It’s like living in sitcom_

_I’m confused by basically everything that happens_

_And I’m waiting for the laugh track to start_

_I’m the guest star, aren’t I?  
I’m the boyfriend character who’s around for like…_

_an episode or two…_

_and then gets bumped from the series_

_For no good reason._

**To: Keith**

_So I see you’re still being crazy_

_Please don’t tell me you’re drinking_

_You get weirder when you drink crazy_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Shut up_

_What was I like as a teenager?_

**To: Keith**

_Did you forget?_

_You were there, you know_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Double shut up_

_I don’t know, just…_

_Okay, so I just watched Sofia, one of Lance’s sisters_

_conduct the most elaborate negotiations_

_just to go to a party hosted by her boyfriend_

_I think he’s her boyfriend?_

_She has a five-step plan to make him her boyfriend_

_It’s very complicated_

_I’m just curious_

**To: Keith**

_Well, you never came up with five-step plans_

_At least not to convince boys to date you_

_You’re too impulsive for that_

_You were basically you but with a quicker temper_

_Okay, you were a little sullen_

_And anti-social_

_Yeah, you were actually a pretty difficult kid_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Huh_

**To: Keith**

_You were a good kid, but you had a…_

_…Hmm.._

_…a hard time with authority_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Yeah, one teacher said I’d end up in reform school_

_Joke’s on her_

_Reform schools aren’t a thing anymore_

**To: Keith**

_I bet I could have found one_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Could not_

**To: Keith**

_Could too._

_I don’t know what you want from this conversation_

_No, we didn’t have negotiations like that_

_Ours were more…_

_…contests of will_

_You spent a lot of time fighting me_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Retroactive apology?_

**To: Keith**

_Not necessary_

_No, we weren’t a ‘normal’ family, Keith_

_But we made it work_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_I guess…_

_I never realized sitcom families existed_

_I thought they were a thing on tv_

_Not…real_

**To: Keith**

_They’re not really real, Keith_

_Every family has problems_

_It’s being human._

_Some just happen to be happy with what they have_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_I’m happy with you_

_Being my family, I mean_

_I don’t think I could live like this._

**To: Keith**

_I’m happy to have you as my family too_

_The publisher likes the book idea_

_So it looks like I might be writing a book_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Congratulations!_

**To: Keith**

_You’re still okay with it, right?_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_Duh_

**To: Keith**

_Thanks, kiddo_

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

_No problem_

…

            The family somehow all ends up congregated in the den while the baked foods – including the turkey – are in the oven. There’s football on and Lance was right, Esperanza is shouting at the tv in Spanglish. She and Lance seem equally into it, the main difference being Lance cheers whenever anyone gets a goal, no matter what team, meaning he gets pelted with popcorn and chips half the time. He’s passed his bad habits onto one of his nieces, who sits on his lap and cheers along with him no matter who scores. She even cheers at some of the commercials. Then Lance joins in and they’re a repeating loop of enthusiasm. Meanwhile Valentina is sitting on her husband’s lap chatting with Jamie and Meg, who has her feet propped in her wife’s lap (she lifts her feet patiently whenever Esperanza jumps up to cheer and leans over to grab Esperanza’s beer and chips to make sure they don’t tip over when their owner leaps to her feet). The teenagers are sitting on the floor, playing some sort of game on their phones and comparing high scores.

            Keith takes the opportunity to slip out, away from the commotion and catch his breath. He likes the energy of Lance’s house, the vitality of his family…but it’s a little hard to keep up with. He fins himself climbing the stairs, searching for a quiet spot to retreat and get his head back in order. He feels like someone shook his brain up. He can feel thoughts clattering around his skull like marbles.

            He’s so distracted he almost trips over a small body on the second landing. He yelps and catches himself, looking down and seeing…the shorthaired niece.

            “Hello,” she peers up at him. Her chestnut hair is cropped close to her head in a cute pixie-cut and garnished with a butterfly clip over her left ear. She’s got a slew of coloring books spread out around her and is carefully filling in each shape with laser precision and focus. “Did it get too loud for you?”

            Keith blinks, what does he say to her?  
           But she’s still talking, “It gets too loud for me sometimes. Mommy says it’s okay to leave if it’s too much. I brought a bunch of coloring books because I can’t decide on a favorite. But I like dragons right now so I’m coloring this one.” She holds up a picture that looks like something out of children’s book of fairytales. The dragon is rainbow-hued and Keith notes with some amusement that the color order is precise ROYGBIV – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Just like a real rainbow. This kid’s a smart cookie.

            “Do you like to color?”

            Keith shrugs, “Sure. I haven’t colored in a long time. But I used to like it when I was your age.”

            “That’s a shame. Daddy says coloring build fine motored skills.”

            “Fine motor skills.”

            “That’s what I said,” she explains patiently, “Fine motored skills.”

            Keith decides not to argue with her.

            “And it’s nice. Everyone should color a little bit.”

            Keith can’t help but agree with that, actually. He’s pretty sure his life would be less stressful if he could sit on the floor and color every now and then.

            “Do you want to color with me? You can use…hmm…” she pauses, thinking through her generosity, “Any of the other books and one of the red crayons. I have two red ones so that’s easy to share. I only have one of everything else so you’re going to have to ask to use those, okay?”

            “Sure,” Keith finds himself agreeing, sitting down opposite her, stretching out his legs until his feet rest on the wall she’s leaning against, his back against the bannister. He grabs a National Geographic Kids coloring book and flips to an empty page – a pride of lions – and readies his red crayon.

…

            “Whoa,” an uncertain amount of time later Keith looks up to find the little girl has scooted over his side of the landing and is standing, peering over his shoulder as he works, “You’re really good at the red crayon.”

            Keith shrugs, a little uncomfortably. He’s always been pretty good with his hands. He can do just about anything short of actual design at the theatre just out of necessity and he’d always been good at drawing. Presented with a red crayon and a kid’s coloring book and no pressing deadlines or expectations he kind of let his imagination run wild. Instead of just filling in the spaces with thick swathes of color he shaded, delicately, carefully, fleshing out the cartoon lions, making them three-dimensional, giving them depth. Aping the style of the original artist, he began to sketch in a savannah background for the cubs to frolic on, using thick lines of color and big, rounded shapes and then coming back in and applying his own finer touch with the shading and contouring.

            “Like, really, really good,” her eyes suddenly light up, “Can you draw me some new coloring pages? Like, I tell you want I want to color and you draw it? But make sure it’s color-able. If stuff’s too small I can’t get my crayon in and then it’s not in the lines.”

            Keith nods, “Sure, get me some paper.”

            She beams and goes digging in her pile of coloring books, coming up with some printer paper and a black marker. “Here,” she holds it out and he takes it gently, closing his coloring book and settling the new materials on top of it, using it as a drawing surface.

            “Okay, what do you want?”

            “Hmm…a dragon! But a dragon _princess_! The dragons are always the bad guys but what if there was a dragon princess and an evil human was holding her captive and her friends had to rescue her! Or, or, what if, what if, what if, she was a dragon princess and _she_ was being held captive by the _human_ princess but the human princess thought that the _dragon_ princess was holding _her_ captive?!”

            Keith is pretty sure he just agreed to illustrate a children’s book concocted by a five-year-old. He’s also wondering how she learned words like ‘captive’ at her age. But he nods and pulls a rubber band off his wrist to tie back his hair as he gets to work on page one.

…

            Footsteps on the stairs interrupt Keith and Dani (this niece is Daniela, Carmen is the one with the long hair and the loud voice – Dani says this with a straight face so apparently she doesn’t realize that she can be just as loud as her sister when she wants) are arguing over whether or not dragons have magic powers or can be affected by magic spells.

            It seems to be a curse of Keith’s – even when Lance isn’t around, Keith will always end up arguing with a McClain-Sanchez.

            “What’s up homeslices?” Carla says, looking down at them, bewildered, “Hiding out from the rest of the pack?”

            “Auntie Carly, can dragons do magic?” Dani demands and Carla tips her head to the side.

            “I don’t know. Aren’t dragons magic all on their own?”

            That brings Dani up short. She has to pause to think this over.

            “We’re making a story about dragons and princesses and…dragon-princesses? Somehow I ended up illustrating a children’s book,” Keith explains.

            Carla snorts, “Welcome to the madhouse. Crazier things have happened.”

            Keith shrugs, “I like it here. It’s…lively.”

            “That it is,” Carla says wryly, settling in on the step above them, “But it can get a little…overwhelming. Over-stimulating. Just plain over the top.”

            “I guess,” Keith agrees, “It’s very different than what I’m used to.”

            “What do you normally do for Thanksgiving, Mystery Man?” Carla asks, tipping her head to the side. She has curly hair like Meg and Jamie, and Meg’s curvy build, but her hair is darker and her eyes a paler blue.

            “Does Lance not talk about me?”

            She snorts, “All the freaking time. But I still don’t know anything about you, you know? Like, it’s a lot of really casual stuff like ‘oh, Keith said’ or ‘I dragged Keith to’ or ‘it’s tech week and Keith’s a zombie I’m _bored_ , entertain me, whine, whine, whine’,” she chuckles, “Like, you’re this huge part of my brother’s life but I don’t really know you. It’s freaking weird,” she smiles a lopsided sort of smile, “I’m used to us knowing everything about each other. It’s the one upside to living eternally in everyone else’s pockets here. You always know what’s up.”

            Keith shrugs, “I’m not very interesting, I’m sorry.”

            “Nuh-uh,” Dani protests, “You draw the best dragons. Okay, now make her swoop down over the prince like this,” Dani sticks out her arms and swerves back and forth, “Swoop, swoop, swoop.”

            “Aye, aye, captain,” Keith says dryly and sets about sketching out what Dani described. He looks up at Carly, who’s watching him with interest, “You want to do twenty questions or something? Easiest way out there to get to know people quickly.”

            “Ooh! I want to play, I want to play!” Dani says, tugging at Keith’s sleeve.

            “Hey, don’t move my arm, I’m trying to draw swooping here.”

            “But I want to play.”

            “How about you and I take turns asking Keith questions, sweetpea?” Carla offers, “And then he’ll ask us questions, me then you, me then you, got it?”

            “Yeah,” Dani claps, then suddenly frowns, “Keith is still going to draw my dragons, right?”

            “Hey, I’m committed to dragon-drawing now. I want to know how the story ends,” Keith says and Dani grins at him.

            He’d better get to those swooping dragons, then.

            “Okay, first question,” Carla says, “Why the heck did you go out with my brother in the first place? According to him he hit you with a mailbox.”

            “Okay, technically, he hit _me_ and my face hit the mailbox – ”

…

            Lance realizes after a couple of hours, the game’s winding down, the room’s just as chaotic as ever although Mom’s gotten up to check on the turkey a couple of times, that he hasn’t seen Keith for…fuck, it’s been hours. He _sucks_. And not in the fun way.

            He gets up; resettling a somewhat tuckered-out Carmen with her parents and exits the room in search of his wayward boyfriend. He should have expected this, really. Keith does this sometimes when he gets overwhelmed; he hides. Typically on the roof because he’s an idiot with a death wish. And it’s always Lance who goes to find him and make sure he’s okay. He knows he doesn’t have to, that Keith’s used to not being found. But every time he considers giving his boyfriend space he remembers the look of surprised pleasure that flits across Keith’s face only to be quickly stifled every time Lance finds him.

            Shit, he’s been a really terrible boyfriend today. No metaphorical cookies for Lance.

            So he begins snooping around for his wandering Keith. Nothing on the ground floor so he starts up the staircase only to almost trip over all three of his AWOL family members gathered together on the second landing. Carly is sitting on a step above Keith, who has his legs stretched out across the landing like denim-clad a trip wire. She’s working on a My Little Pony coloring book while Dani peers over Keith’s shoulder as he sketches something out on printer paper.

            “Dumbest thing you’ve ever done, go,” Carly is saying and Keith shakes his head.

            “Do you want an alphabetical list or something organized by genre?”

            “Okay, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?”

            “Uh, one time my mom and I camped out at the Grand Canyon in the middle of winter? I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be on Parks property after hours without a permit or something and, in case you were wondering, it gets really cold at night during the winter in the desert. We almost froze to death. We ended up sleeping in the car in the same sleeping bag, trying to conserve heat. I was maybe nine, I think?”

            “I have so many questions about your mom’s decision-making skills,” Lance mutters, sitting down on the step below Keith and turning to face him, draping an arm over his legs. “Hi, babe, found you.”

            “Yeah, because that was a challenge,” Keith says dryly, but Lance can see the bright spark in his eye that says ‘he found me’.

            “You’re very stealthy; you could have been anywhere.”

            “Okay, martial arts training does not actually equal stealth, Lance. I’m not a ninja.”

            “Hmm, you’re sneaky, though.”

            “When I say I’m not a ninja, I mean it. I’m not a ninja.”

            “But that’s exactly what a ninja would say!”

            Keith rolls his eyes but doesn’t have a comeback and Lance grins. Victory.

            “Whatcha doing?” Lance asks, scooting closer to wrap his arms around Keith’s middle and look at the printer paper in his hands.

            “Dani asked me to make coloring book pages,” Keith explains.

            “They tell a story!” Dani explains cheerfully, “Keith’s really good at this.”

            “And I’m making your boyfriend play twenty questions,” Carly adds.

            “I’m using my questions for good,” Keith says piously.

            “He’s got so much dirt on you now, bro,” Carly says with a wicked grin.

            Lance pouts at Keith, “You’re terrible.”

            “Love you,” Keith says sunnily and Lance head-butts him lightly but it’s not particularly effective seeing as Lance’s arms are still wrapped around Keith’s waist.

            “You guys are cute,” Carly says with a soft smile and Lance pulls his attention away from Keith to catch his sister’s eyes. ‘Isn’t he great?’ he mouths to her and she mouths ‘good job’ back at him.

            Ha. He did do a good job.

…

            Dinner is a raucous affair but warm. There’s turkey but Mama also made her famous spicy fish stew and rice and beans too. They do the dumb cliché thing of going around the table and saying what they’re thankful for. Mom says having all her kids in one room, plus a few extras. Valentina’s grateful for how well her non-profit’s doing, Bruce makes some comment about the twins and a joke about taxes that only other accounts would think was funny, the twins are thankful for normal little kid stuff, although Dani adds in dragon-princesses at the end, which only their little staircase club gets. Jamie talks about a good harvest and Andie says ‘early application being over’ which draws chuckles form everyone who had to suffer through early app for college. Sofia looks _this close_ to bringing up getting to go to Tyler’s party but restrains herself and opts for praising the food instead. Carly mentions how glad she is to be able to see everyone again. And it’s Lance’s turn and he squeezes Keith’s hand under the table before saying “seeing everyone I love happy” and meaning it. Even Hunk and Pidge. Pidge had sent a selfie of her and Matt with part of their Lego creation and Hunk’s been Snapchatting food all day. Allura’s been posting pics on Facebook of her and her family, including Lance’s kooky boss, Coran, who is her uncle or something. Everyone Lance loves is happy today and it feels pretty damn good. When it’s Keith’s turn he looks a little panicked but Lance is pretty sure he’s the only one who can read Keith well enough to tell. Keith doesn’t say much, just a very quiet “family” and leaves it at that but he squeezes Lance’s hand back under the table and Lance can tell what he’s thinking.

            Keith’s never had much of a family; Keith’s always been an outsider. Sometimes Lance wishes he had telepathy or something so he could beam all these warm fuzzy thoughts and feelings he has about Keith straight into that thick skull of his. He remembers a conversation he’d had with his mom once about relationships. It was when he was a teenager and in the dramatic way of teenagers, utterly convinced that he was going to die alone because no one could stand him that long.

            Mom had sat next to him and said, “Honey, it’s not about the butterflies in the stomach and all that twitter-pated nonsense” (his littlest sisters were still young enough to be in the Disney phase and they were obsessed with Bambi) “it’s about the person you want to talk to when you’ve had a bad day. It’s about the person you want to tell first when good things happen to you. It’s the person you want to share your nonsense, middle-of-the-night thoughts with. That’s what love is, that’s what lasting love is. And it’s work. It’s hard. But it’s worth it.”

            And yeah, Keith’s hard to read and hard to understand and they’re not always good at communicating but dammit, he’s the first person. He’s the one Lance wants to tell everything to first.

            Lance McClain-Sanchez doesn’t know a whole lot but he is 100% certain that he’s going to marry Keith Kogane someday.

            But for now they have family and laughter and turkey.

            It’s a happy Thanksgiving.


	4. Someone Reaching Back to Me – Bonus Scenes/Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus scenes that didn't make it into the main story for 'Someone Reaching Back to Me'.

_After Sofia leaves for Tyler’s party_

            “Your sister’s plot to get this guy to date her is…”

            “Absolutely crazy?” Lance says; dropping down onto the couch and throwing his legs over Keith’s lap, looping his arms around Keith’s neck and using his shoulder as a pillow, “Yep. But that’s high school.”

            “Everyone makes high school harder than it has to be,” Keith says.

            “You didn’t play the social ladder game in high school?” Lance asks.

            “No,” Keith says flatly, “I mean, I got into fights with a lot of assholes but I didn’t really care if they were popular or not.”

            Lance chokes on a laugh, “Oh my god, you were totally Heath Ledger in _Ten Things I Hate About You_ in high school, weren’t you?”

            “Who?”

            “Oh my god, we’re watching that movie when we get home. You need to see it. It’s a timeless gem and a classic.”

            Keith shrugs and Lance can feel muscle ripple under his cheek. Mmm, boyfriend muscles. They stay like that for a few minutes, just breathing and then Keith asks, out of the blue, “Do you think we would have liked each other in high school?”

            Lance almost laughs, but then he pauses and actually considers it and chuckles, but this time it’s a self-deprecating sort of sound. “I would have had the biggest crush on you. And I would have been a little _shit_ about it.”

            “Seriously?”

            “Yep. Totally. I can see it now. You’re beautiful and kind of give off this aura of not needing anybody and being freakishly good at everything. It would have driven me _crazy._ I would’ve pulled your pigtails like no tomorrow.”

            Keith snorts, “I would have envied you. All I wanted in high school was not to feel like an outsider freak. You would have had everything I thought I wanted.”

            “What changed?” Lance asked, soft against his collarbone.

            Keith shrugs, “I grew up, I figured stuff out and learned how to be happy with myself. It’s dumb and cliché but that’s it. No big dramatic change. Although Shiro being around definitely helped.”

            “I got over myself,” Lance says wryly, “I figured out what I wanted to do and how the skills I had were actually pretty cool and pretty useful. Nothing big or dramatic either. But the handful of years I was the oldest kid at home were pretty eye-opening.”

            Keith rests his cheek on Lance’s hair. “I’m glad we met when we did.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Good.”

…

_Conversation with Shiro_

            “My agent said something interesting,” Shiro muses, then pauses and laughs, “Man, I have an _agent_. It makes me sound like a movie star or something.”

            “Focus, Shiro. What did the agent – oh my god, that’s so fun to say.”

            “I know, right?” Shiro laughs, a giddy little giggle that almost never puts on an appearance in these post-war days, “Anyway, she said something interesting. We were talking about the book, kind of working out the general shape of it with my editor and she looks at me and says ‘I know your mom is supposed to be the dramatic focal point, but this story sounds like’s it’s more about you and your brother than anything else’. I dunno, it made me think.”

            “Huh.”

            “Yeah,” Shiro sighs, “I guess she’s right in a way. It was always kind of us against the world. You and me and then mom. I kind of felt bad for her when I visited. It was almost like she got left out.”

            “She shouldn’t have been worried about being left out. She was supposed to be our mom. Not our playmate,” Keith says, voice hard but brittle. Fragile.

            “Don’t be too hard on Mom.”

            “I miss her, Shiro,” Keith says, frustrated, “But sometimes I missed her when she was still alive. I grew up missing her. It’s not fair.”

            “Yeah,” Shiro pauses, “Are you still cool with me writing this book?”

            “You’d better stop asking me that, I might say no.”

            “Are you okay with me writing this book?”

            “Yes. Write the book. Maybe it’ll be good for us. More financially rewarding than therapy anyway.”

            Shiro laughs, “Yeah, true.”

…

_Family Dinner – again_

            “Okay, post-Thanksgiving debrief,” Lance says at the next Family dinner, sitting on Hunk and Pidge’s apartment floor, Keith’s leaned against his side like a lazy cat, periodically reaching over and stealing chunks of chicken off his plate, “Anything cool happen at your Thanksgivings?”

            Pidge shrugs, “Matt and I got our Lego Macy’s parade to move this year – tiny motors on everything…but unfortunately a runaway float tripped my mom and we lost half the turkey to the floor. With what Dad burned or over-spiced it was a bit of a mixed bag. I really don’t know why Mom does this to herself every year.” She chomps on an eggroll decisively, “We decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Our lights are more badass than ever before,” she grins smugly, then sighs, “… _but_ Matt fell off the roof trying to put up one of our more complicated displays and ended up with a broken leg. At least it’ll keep him out of trouble for a month. It’s hard to run off and do stupid stuff on crutches.”

            Lance whistles, “Your Thanksgiving reaches new destructive heights as usual, Pidge,” she nods grandly, “Hunk?”

            “It was pretty normal, except one of my aunts was offended that Mom used her mom’s recipe instead of my dad’s aunt’s…or something? Something about recipes. Anyway, there was a food fight and it was delicious.”

            “Sweet!” Lance grins, pauses, then says “ _literally_ ” while the rest of them groan.

            “What about you?” Hunk asks and Lance beams.

            “Keith survived meeting my family. Tada! And he hasn’t broken up with me yet!”

            “He did that the entire trip,” Keith says from Lance’s shoulder, “Every morning he’d wake me up saying, ‘good morning, I love you, you haven’t broken up with me yet’ like these are things I wouldn’t already know.”

            “It was cute, I was enthusiastic,” Lance huffs.   
            “He woke me up _every morning,_ ” Keith says flatly, to Hunk and Pidge’s laughter. “But actually it was pretty great. We did the big Thanksgiving dinner thing on Thursday and then his younger sisters dragged us Black Friday shopping.”

            “It was horrifying,” Lance says.

            “It wasn’t that bad,” Keith argues, “We went Friday morning after the insanity had died down.”

            “The carnage!” Lance says dramatically.

            “It wasn’t that bad,” Keith reiterates, “And, uh, since Shiro was out of town for Actual Thanksgiving we’re going to do our traditional stuff this weekend. You guys can join us if you want.”

            “What do you do?” Hunk asks.

            Keith shrugs, “Not much, we just make homemade pizza and binge-watch old Pixar movies and buy a bunch of cranberry juice and alcohol and compete to see who can make the best cranberry-themed mixed drink.”

            To Keith’s surprise, his friends grin, “Yeah, we’d love to do that with you guys,” Hunk says, “That sounds great.”

            “Told you so,” Lance whispers in Keith’s ear and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song 'Holding Out for a Hero'.
> 
> THIS FIC HAS ART NOW, I AM SO EXCITED, IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL: 
> 
> http://rainmonarch.tumblr.com/post/155134869079/first-contribution-to-lanceweek-for-the-prompt


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